The Patriot Army in 1775

 

Regular United States Infantry during the Revolutionary War were known as “Continentals” or the “Continental Line.”

Massachusetts and Virginia each furnished the largest of the state Lines.  Each state was responsible for equipping its own soldiers.

At the beginning of the war equipping troops with proper firearms was a major problem.  Although men usually brought their own weapons when mustered (long rifles or hunting guns), the lack of uniformity among these weapons was a problem. 

The notorious inaccuracy of the musket made the use of the bayonet a key element in battlefield tactics. 

The opposing armies lined up facing each other in ranks two or three deep and fired in the direction of the enemy. The musket was highly inaccurate at a distance greater than 80 yards.

Speed in loading and firing was more important than aiming.  The volume of fire was considered the measure of a good army. Presumably if you fired enough times you were bound to hit someone.   

The battlefield tactics of the time called for reliance on the musket with a bayonet.

Civilian hunting guns and rifles were not designed to mount a bayonet. If a fight was confined to shooting, the Americans had an advantage with their longer range rifles.

If a battle ended with a bayonet charge, of which the British were masters, the Americans would be outmatched.

In 1777, General Washington formed a Corps of Riflemen under the command of the Virginian Daniel Morgan to take advantage of the long range shooting capability and accuracy of the rifle.  These riflemen were a special unit, protected by regular Line troops when threatened by bayonets. 

The musket problem was not resolved until 1777.  France became the primary supplier of military style muskets. 

Some 102,000 muskets were delivered to America between 1776 and 1781.  By 1777 the entire Continental Line was equipped with French muskets.

Until the formation of the Continental Line in 1775, the American colonies had depended on home grown militias for their day to day protection.

 

In times of peace the militia was more of a social or drinking club than a military organization. Discipline was lax and training sketchy. Even in times of war, militiamen were reluctant to serve more than a few weeks away from home.  Without them, who would work the farm and provide for the family? 

 

Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the militia, militiamen often provided essential manpower on the ground at key moments.  British commanders had to take into account the size of militia forces operating against them when planning campaigns.  Such forces might be unpredictable, and unsteady in a pitched battle against British regulars, but they could inflict significant damage, especially in guerilla style attacks.

Even though the militia force was large and useful, General Washington was convinced that ultimate victory over the British would require the creation of a national, disciplined, professional army.  He created this Continental Army which would serve the American war effort well, with the militia providing significant support.

The Most Famous Pictures of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

The first widely distributed artistic rendition of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was called “The Battle on the Little Big Horn River:  The death struggle of General Custer.”  Using a wood engraving based on a drawing by W.M. Cary, The Daily Graphic: an Illustrated Evening Newspaper, published in New York, was able to portray the scene of battle as early as July 19, 1876. 

The newspaper, which was the first in America to publish daily illustrations, may have been the first in print, but the depiction was not accurate.  Custer is seen standing on a boulder, waving a saber, in a double breasted coat with a sash, which made him look more like a desperado or a pirate than a soldier.

Many regard Edgar S. Paxon’s “Custer’s Last Stand” as the best pictorial representation of the battle.  Arriving in Montana in 1877, the artist spent twenty years researching, and eight years painting the monumental work, interviewing nearly one hundred men on both sides including the Sioux chief Gall.

From these interviews Paxson, in his effort to achieve historical accuracy, made detailed journals about the equipment, attire, and physical location of each man on the battlefield.

The painting now resides at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Wyoming.

In 1884 the artists Cassilly Adams completed a painting he named “Custer’s Last Fight.”  The painting was sold to John Ferber the owner of a saloon in St. Louis, Missouri, where the picture was prominently displayed.  The brewer Adolphus Busch acquired the painting and the saloon in 1892 when Ferber went broke.

Busch commissioned Otto F. Becker, to produce lithographs based on the painting to be used as advertising.  The first advertising prints appeared in 1896 with a run of fifteen thousand prints.  There have been eighteen subsequent editions with over one million copies having been produced. The original Adams painting was destroyed by fire on June 13, 1946.

This painting has been criticized for having many historical inaccuracies, including what appears to be a Zulu warrior rushing at Custer.

The renowned artist of the American Old West, Charles M. Russell produced the lithograph “The Custer Fight” in 1903 depicting the battle from the view of the Native American combatants.

"The Battle of Little Bighorn" was painted by Kicking Bear in 1898 at the request of the western  artist Frederick Remington.   Kicking Bear fought at the Little Bighorn.  His drawing is a significant view of the battle as seen by Native Americans.

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

The British Army in 1775

 

In 1775 Great Britain depended on the Royal Navy to maintain trade and project British power.  Throughout the war the British could strike when and where they would along the virtually undefended American coastline. 

The British army numbered 48,000 men, about a quarter of the size of the French army.  Unlike the navy which depended on conscription and impressment for manpower, the British Army at the time of the American Revolution was a volunteer force. 

Volunteers were farm laborers or the unemployed, and usually in their early twenties.  A life in the army provided steady pay, regular meals and an escape from poverty.  The non-commissioned officers were the backbone of the army and insured strict discipline and rigorous training.

As the war progressed, the army expanded rapidly.  Some fifty thousand British soldiers fought in America. 

Two short periods of impressment were tried, in which unemployed men were taken into the army.  This proved so unpopular in Britain that it was quickly abandoned. 

The British turned to a well-established eighteenth century custom to augment their numbers namely hiring foreign auxiliaries.

Approximately 30,000 German troops were hired by the British to fight during the American Revolution. Most of these troops were from the German princely state of Hesse-Cassel, and hence the term “Hessians” came to be applied to all German troops in America no matter which princely state from which they may actually have originated.

Soldiers were a major export for Hesse-Cassel.  Boys were registered for military service at the age of seven.  Men from the ages of sixteen to thirty presented themselves annually for possible induction.  School dropouts, bankrupts, and the unemployed could be inducted at any time.  Life in the Hessian army was marked by harsh discipline, but had economic benefits.  Wages were higher than farm work and there was a promise of additional official money from the sale of captured military property.  There was also the lure of making money by plundering civilians, which although officially forbidden was widespread.

Early in the war, the Continental Congress devised a plan offering fifty acres of land, freedom to practice their religion, and civil liberties to German deserters.  Thousands of former Hessian soldiers did indeed remain in America after the war.

Benedict Arnold after the American Revolution

 

After betraying his country, Benedict Arnold accepted a commission in the British army.  After the war Benedict Arnold was not celebrated when he arrived in England.  

He tried to advise British politicians to continue the fight for America despite the defeat at Yorktown.  Members of Parliament expressed the hope that the government would never put Arnold at the head of a part of the British army lest “the sentiments of true honour, which every British officer (holds) dearer than life, should be (offended).”  

Arnold next tried his hand at business.  He was turned down for a position in the East India Company where great fortunes were being made with the explanation that the purity of his conduct was generally thought low.  

In 1785, Arnold tried land speculation in Canada and trading in the West Indies.  The entire family moved to Canada in 1787, where the quarrelsome Arnold became involved in a series of bad business deals and petty lawsuits.  He became so unpopular that the townspeople of Saint John, New Brunswick burned him in effigy in front of his house as his family watched.  

The family returned to London in 1791. In July 1792, Arnold fought a duel with the Earl of Lauderdale who had impugned his honor.  When war broke out with France he outfitted a privateer and sailed for the West Indies.  By 1801 Arnold’s health began to fail.  After four days of delirium he died on June 14, 1801 at the age of sixty leaving debts and a name synonymous with treachery.

Banastre Tarleton after the American Revolution

 

 Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton who led the fearsome Loyalist British Legion returned to England in triumph at the end of the American Revolution.  He was universally acclaimed for his legendary exploits in the American war and became a close friend of the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV).  In 1787 Tarleton wrote History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America.  In 1790 he was elected to Parliament, where he served for over twenty years. In the Napoleonic Wars, Tarleton served under the Duke of Wellington reaching the rank of lieutenant general in 1801.  In 1815, he was awarded a baronetcy.

 In 2006, four Patriot regimental colors captured by Tarleton in 1779 and 1780 were auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York City on Flag Day.  Lot No. 1 consisted of one flag.  Lot No. 2 consisted of the three regimental colors of the 3^rd Virginia Detachment that Tarleton captured at the Battle of Waxhaws (also known as The Waxhaws Massacre).  Passed down in Tarleton’s family for almost two hundred and fifty years these battle flags were the last American Revolutionary War colors known to remain in British hands and the last such colors to remain in private hands anywhere.  The fiercely contested auction lasted fourteen minutes and raised $17.3 million. The three Virginia flags sold for $5.0 million.  The private buyer remains anonymous, but the flags have occasionally been exhibited publicly.

Who Were the Slaves of the Founding Fathers?

Lord Cornwallis after Yorktown

 

Despite his defeat at Yorktown, Lord Charles Cornwallis was cheered when he landed in England on January 21, 1782.  He retained the confidence of successive British governments and was appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-chief in India in 1786.  He successfully led British forces to victory in the Third Anglo-Mysore War from 1789 to 1792.  In 1798 Cornwallis was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief of Ireland.  The spirit of revolution had swept the British out of America and now threatened to do the same thing in Ireland.  Disaffected Irishmen began to assert their “constitutional rights” and sought aid from the French who had staged their own revolution in 1789.  A massive force of 26,000 was assembled under Lord Cornwallis which crushed the Irish rebellion and repulsed a French invasion of Ireland.  Following his service in Ireland, Cornwallis was reappointed to India in 1805 where he died of fever at the age of sixty-six not long after his arrival.

How Martha Washington Lived: 18th Century Customs

The Most Famous Private Soldier of the American Revolution

 

 Peter Francisco (1760-1831) who was six feet eight inches tall, and weighed some 260 pounds has come down to history with the title the “Virginia Giant.” His deeds during the Revolutionary War became the stuff of myth and legend. Some of the stories may actually contain an element of truth, others if not true “ought to be”, in the words of the heroic storytellers of the Revolution.  The stories of the Giant’s deeds were so popular by the 1820s that the early Revolutionary War historian Alexander Garden wrote that he “scarcely ever met a man in Virginia who had not some miraculous tale to tell of Peter Francisco.”

Pedro (later called Peter) Francisco arrived at the dock in City Point aged five and was unable to speak English. It is believed that he had been kidnapped from his Portuguese parents in the Azores. He was taken in and raised by the family of Judge Anthony Winston.

 In 1776, at the age of sixteen Francisco enlisted in the Virginia Line. He fought in Pennsylvania at the Battle of Germantown and in New Jersey at the Battle of Monmouth. Francisco was part of an attack on the British fort of Stony Point in New York where supposedly, even after receiving a nine-inch wound to the stomach, he continued to fight; killing twelve British grenadiers and capturing the enemy’s flag.

  One of his most well-known feats occurred in South Carolina after the Battle of Camden. Seeing an American cannon mired in mud and about to be abandoned, he freed the 1,100-pound cannon and carried it on his shoulders to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

 He fought at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. A monument at Guilford Court House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s efforts,” To Peter Francisco a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”

 The story of “Francisco’s Fight” relates how the legendary giant, although unarmed, overpowered nine enemy dragoons who were trying to rob him of the silver buckles on his shoes. He supposedly killed three dragoons and made off with eight horses.

The First Attack on the Custer Legend (Battle of the Little Bighorn)

 George Armstrong Custer’s widow, Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer died on April 4, 1933.  She had defended her husband’s reputation for over fifty years.  Within a year the Custer legend was under attack by revisionist historians.

 In 1934 Frederic F. Van de Water wrote Glory Hunter.: A Life of General Custer.  

Custer’s primary qualities according to Van der Water were blind ambition and hubris. 

Rare Copy of Constitution Sold at Auction

 

 The National Archives 

On October 17, 2024, a rare privately owned copy of the U.S. Constitution was sold at auction by Brunks Auctions of Asheville, North Carolina for $9 million.  The final bid far outstripped the reserve price of $1 million.  The bidding lasted seven minutes and bids came in at $500,000 intervals.

This rare artifact is one of the 100 official copies printed in 1787 that were sent to state leaders for review before being formally adopted, and is among only eight copies known to exist today, and is the only one still in private hands.  The document was sold to an anonymous bidder.

The almost 237 year old document was found inside a battered filing cabinet in a long neglected storage room on a property in Edenton, North Carolina once owned by the state’s first governor Samuel Johnston.  Johnston was governor from 1787 to 1789, and oversaw the state convention that ratified the Constitution.  Also found with the copy of the Constitution was an original letter from George Washington asking for ratification!

Wicked and the Ruby Slippers.

 

Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West creates a backstory for Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, and explores the world of The Wizard of Oz from her perspective. Elphaba is modeled after Margaret Hamilton's portrayal in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned, clad entirely in black and wearing a tall, peaked hat. 

The novel Wicked explains that the ruby slippers a pair of magical shoes which play a pivotal role in The Wizard of Oz, were given to Nessarose, the future Wicked Witch of the East, by her father. In the musical Wicked, it is Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who enchants the shoes, giving her crippled sister Nessarose the ability to walk.

The ruby slippers worn by Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz have achieved iconic stature and are among the most valuable items of film memorabilia.

In L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wears silver shoes but the color of the shoes was changed to take advantage of the introduction of Technicolor to the movies.

The wardrobe woman who worked on the film claimed "six identical pairs" had been made. Four pairs used in the movie have been accounted for.  Is it possible that the other two pair are tucked away in someone’s garage or attic?

Let’s look at the big four:

One pair is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

Another pair was initially owned by one Roberta Bauman who won them in a contest.  In 1988, these shoes were sold at auction to Anthony Landini for $150,000. Landini auctioned this pair of slippers, at Christie's auction house in 2000, for $666,000. They now belong to a collector who owns memorabilia shops in Hollywood.

A third pair were the highlight of the 2011 “Icons of Hollywood auction”.  They were offered with a starting reserve price of two million dollars, but did not sell.  Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, and other benefactors made it possible for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acquire the pair for an undisclosed price in February 2012 for the Academy’s new Museum in Los Angeles.

Michael Shaw acquired the fourth pair in 1970. These were stolen from an exhibit at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in August, 2005.  On September 4, 2018, the FBI announced the stolen pair had been recovered after 13 years.  Five year later, one Terry Martin was indicted for the crime and pleaded guilty, saying that he thought the slippers were made from real rubies because they were insured for one million dollars.

Another iconic piece of Oz memorabilia, the Wicked Witch’s hat from the 1939 movie, has recently come up for auction with a whopping price tag of $140,000.

Afghanistan: The Most Incompetent General Ever

 

Major General William Elphinstone is considered by some military historians to be “the most incompetent soldier who ever became a general”, possessed of “the leadership qualities of a sheep.”  Elphinstone’s road to disaster, however, was well paved and made broad by others.

 In 1838, Afghanistan was a buffer state between British India and the expanding Russian Empire.  Energized by real or imagined Russian plots in the country, the British rallied support behind a prince favorable to British interests, marched into the country, and after a short campaign installed a puppet king in Kabul on August 6, 1839.

 Many in British India now felt that the mission had been accomplished.  It was time to bring the troops home.  Most of the victorious army marched home, but a permanent British garrison was established in Kabul to prop up the new regime.  It needed propping up.  The British had replaced a relatively popular ruler with a weak puppet. Scattered fighting erupted in the surrounding countryside.

 Increasingly frustrated with the costs of maintaining a large garrison in Kabul, the British government eliminated the subsidies being paid to the various tribes in the area around Kabul to keep the peace. Once the subsidies ended, hostile activity increased even more. 

 Into this rapidly deteriorating situation stepped Major General William Elphinstone, who was assured by all, “You will have nothing to do here; all is peace.”

 When Elphinstone arrived in Kabul his command consisted of some 4,500 troops (British troops and Indian sepoys).  Additionally, there were 12,000 army dependents such as wives, children, and servants, living in the British cantonment just outside of Kabul.

 The military situation on the ground when Elphinstone arrived was a tragedy waiting to happen.  The British had abandoned the city’s fortified citadel, the Bala Hissar, to the puppet king and built the British cantonment some 1.5 miles outside of the city in a low area surrounded by Afghan forts occupying the high ground.  These forts had been neither occupied nor destroyed. 

 The cantonment itself was indefensible. According to contemporary witnesses there had been, “a pretense of rendering the cantonments defensible by surrounding the great parallelogram with the caricature of an obstacle in the shape of a shallow ditch and feeble earthwork over which an active cow could scramble.”

 Elphinstone now nearly sixty was racked by gout and rheumatism. He was soon unable to mount his horse un-aided. He was incapable of reaching clear cut decisions and vacillated depending on the opinion of the latest person with whom he spoke.  One officer wrote, that Elphinstone was “fit only for the invalid establishment on the day of his arrival.” 

 On 2 November 1841 a revolt broke out in Kabul.  A mob of insurgents stormed the house of one of the senior British civilian officers and murdered him and his staff.  Elphinstone took no action, which encouraged the insurgents to press the British further.  The Afghans next stormed the poorly defended supply fort where the British garrison’s provisions were housed. 

 After furious fighting around the small fort and repeated calls for help, Elphinstone finally realized that he should do something.  The relief force was surprised, however, to find the survivors of the supply fort, having abandoned all hope of relief, making a hasty retreat toward the cantonment.  Elphinstone’s inaction had resulted in the loss of most of the army’s food and supplies.

 A council of war proposed, as the winter was coming on, either to retreat to the British stronghold of Jalalabad some ninety miles away, or to move to the Bala Hissar, Kabul’s strong bastion.  Elphinstone overruled the move to the Bala Hissar and settled on retreat. 

 On the Afghan promise of a safe retreat, Elphinstone capitulated on January 1, 1842, handing over the army’s gunpowder reserves, most of the cannon, and all of the newest muskets. 

 The troops and twelve thousand civilians began the march to Jalalabad on January 6.  The sick and wounded were left behind with a guarantee of their safety.  They were murdered as soon as the last of Elphinstone’s soldiers left the cantonment. 

 The retreat of the column was an unmitigated horror.  Weather conditions were extreme, and the column was continually harassed by the fire of Afghan tribesmen.  The first night, the column halted six miles from the city.  The road was already strewn with the dead and dying. 

 By the evening of January 9, some 3,000 of Elphinstone's column had died due to enemy action, the freezing weather, or even suicide.  Elphinstone had ceased giving any orders.

 On the evening of January 11th, the wives of the British officers accepted being taken hostage by the Afghans who anticipated a large ransom for their release.  The wives and children of the Indian troops were all to die since they would not bring a ransom.

 Elphinstone and his second in command also allowed themselves to become hostages, while the column struggled on against certain death.  Elphinstone died of dysentery on April 23, 1842, while in captivity.

Only one British officer managed to reach Jalalabad.  On 13 January, Assistant Surgeon William Brydonrode through the gates of Jalalabad on an exhausted horse. Part of his skull was sheared off by a sword. When asked what happened to the army, he answered “I am the army.”

Sitting Bull’s Last Words

Shortly before his murder in 1890, Sitting Bull said to his biographer:

“When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world.  The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.  Where are the warriors today?  Who slew them?  Where are our lands?  Who owns them? …. Is it wrong for me to love my own?  Is it wicked for me because my skin is red?  Because I am Sioux.  Because I was born where my fathers lived?  Because I would die for my people and my country?  I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle.”

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer Captures a Confederate Washington

 

                                                    Washington                            Custer

James Barroll Washington was born in Baltinore, Maryland in 1839.  His father, Colonel Lewis Washignton was a grandson of General George Washington’s brother, John Augustine Washington.  James entered West Point in 1859 and was a classmate of George Armstrong Custer.

When the Civil War broke out, young Washington left West Point and joined the staff of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston.  On May 21, 1862 at the Battle of Seven Pines, while delivering orders from General Johnston to General Longstreet,  Lieutenant Washington was captured by a company under the command of Captain George Armstrong Custer.  Custer took the opportunity to have a picture taken with his old classmate before sending him the rear as a prisoner of war.  Washington was subsequently exchanged and continued to serve in the Confederate army until the end of the war.

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

Captain Benteen Describes Panic at the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

“I went over the battlefield carefully with a view to determine how the fight was fought.  I arrived at the conclusion I have right now-that it was a rout, a panic, till the last man was killed; that there was no line formed.

“There was no line on the battlefield.  You can take a handful of corn and scatter it over a floor and make just such lines.  There were none. The only approach to a line was where five or six horses were found equal distances like skirmishers.  Ahead of them were five or six men about the same distances….That was the only approach to a line on the field. (This was on Calhoun Hill).

“There were more than twenty killed there to the right; there were four or more all within a space of twenty to thirty yards.  That was the condition all over the field.  Only where General Custer was found was there any evidence of a stand.

“ I counted seventy dead horses and two Indian ponies.  I think, in all probability, that the men turned their horses loose without any orders to do so.  Many orders might have been given, but few obeyed.  I think they were panic stricken; it was a rout….”

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined

Captain Benteen's Testimony about George Armstrong Custer

 

“The battalion organization was made after we had marched about four hours.  I think at the first halt an orderly came to me with instructions for the officers to assemble.  General Custer told us that he had just come down from the mountain; that he had been told by the scouts that they could see a village, ponies, tepees and smoke.  He gave it to us as his belief that there were no Indians there; that he had looked through the glasses and could not see any, and did not think there were any there.

 “Now, in 1875, I had a very similar experience with Indians in Dakota, and as the statements of the Indians then were absolutely confirmed by what was afterward proved, I was strong in the belief that the Crow Indians only reported what was shown them by their superior keenness of vision, and that the hostile village was where they located it; but as no opinions were asked for, none were given.”

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

The Strange Odyssey of the Little Bighorn Artifacts

 

On June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, five companies of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped out. 

 

Many artifacts initially lost on the battlefield were to have a strange after life.  Take for example, the engraved pocket watch of George Armstrong Custer.  There are at least two stories regarding the odyssey of the watch. 

In Son of the Morning Star, historian Evan S. Connel relates that in 1906 a Montana saloon keeper bought the watch from a Sioux Indian.  The watch was lost in a dice game, exhibited in a travelling show, and finally turned up in California before being purchased for the Don and Stella Foote Collection in Billings, Montana. The Foote’s would eventually offer their Treasures of the West collection to the city of Billings, which rejected the gift because the city did not want to pay to have the collection insured.  The collection was sold off and the whereabouts of Custer’s watch is now unknown.

In his book, The Law Marches West, a Canadian Mountie named Cecil Denny claimed that he retrieved the watch from Sitting Bull and sent it to Libbie Custer.

 

Custer’s final message to Captain Benteen to “Come quick, bring packs”, written down by Adjutant Cooke went missing for decades. 

 

In the 1920’s one of Custer’s early biographers, William Graham tried to locate the missing document, only to be told by Benteen’s son that all his father's papers had been destroyed when their house had burned down many years before.  This turned out to by incorrect. 

 

Captain Benteen had given the famous message to an army officer friend, Captain Price. The message finally came to rest in the hands of a New Jersey collector for fifty years, before being put up for auction.  By a happy circumstance Colonel Charles Francis Bates learned of the existence of the message and secured it for the museum at West Point, where it resides today.

 

The medals of Captain Miles Keogh tell an interesting story.  The senior captain among the five companies wiped out with Custer, Keogh's body was found at the center of a group of troopers that included his two sergeants, company trumpeter and guidon bearer.

 Keogh was stripped but not mutilated, perhaps because of the "medicine" the Indians saw in two Papal medals he wore on a chain around his neck.  Vatican records confirm these two medals were given to Keogh during The Papal War of 1860.

  Captain Benteen secured the medals which were sent to Keogh’s sister in Ireland.  They remained in the family until 1988 when they passed into the hands of a well-known collector.  The medals were recently auctioned off for $35,000.

 2nd Lt. John James Crittenden of Kentucky received a gold watch from his father on his twenty first birthday.  Crittenden was 22 years old when he died at Little Big Horn. His body was identified because of his glass eye.

His watch was missing.  In 1880, E.F. Gigot was working in a Canadian trading post when a trapper came in with furs, blankets, and a watch.  Gigot bought the watch of $2.  This was a gentleman’s watch and Gigot began to research.  He wrote to the watchmaker in London, providing the serial number.  The watchmaker confirmed that the watch had been sold to a man named Crittenden.  Gigot wrote to the U.S. Army which confirmed that the watch belonged to 2nd Lt. John James Crittenden.  The watch was returned to the family, which loaned the artifact to the Kentucky Historical Society in 1949 where it remains to this day.

Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time

Custer the Resplendent

 

In the early days of the American Civil War, George Armstrong Custer wore his hair long, and wore a braided black velvet jacket and a flaming red necktie.  When a female friend asked Custer why he had dressed in such a fantastic manner he replied:

"I was but a boy, just from West Point and I felt young and insignificant. There were men in my brigade old enough to be my father. I wished them to know and recognize me at once from any part of the battlefield. I chose a uniform that would catch their attention and individualize me."

History's Ten Worst Generals

The Grisly Epilogue of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

On June 25, 1876, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, five companies of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, under the direct command of George Armstrong Custer were wiped out. 

 

White Wolf, who was in the fight, said that afterwards a lot of young men searched the soldiers’ pockets. That square green paper money was in them. Later when the children were making toy mud horses, they used the money for miniature saddle blankets. Silver money was also found from which the Cheyennes made silver buckles.

 

Other warriors including Wooden Leg, Little Hawk and Bobtail Horse found bottles of whiskey on dead troopers.

On June 27, 1876 the cavalry discovered the remains. 

Lieutenant E.S. Godfrey reported

The marble white bodies, the somber brown of the dead horses and the dead ponies scattered all over the field, but thickest on and near Custer Hill, and the scattering tufts of reddish brown grass on the almost ashy white soil depicts a scene of loneliness and desolation that "bows down the heart in sorrow." I can never forget the sight: 

Captain Tom Custer  was found near the top of the hill, north, and a few yards from the General, lying on his face; his features were so pressed out of shape as to be almost beyond recognition; a number of arrows had been shot in his back, several in his head, one I remember, without the shaft, the head bent so that it could hardly be withdrawn; his skull was crushed and nearly all the hair scalped, except a very little on the nape of the neck.

General Custer was not mutilated at all; he laid on his back, his upper arms on the ground, the hands folded or so placed as to cross the body above the stomach; his position was natural and one that we had seen hundreds of times while taking cat naps during halts on the march. One hit was in the front of the left temple, and one in the left breast at or near the heart.

Boston, the youngest Custer brother was found about two hundred yards from "Custer Hill." The body was stripped except his white cotton socks and they had the name cut off.

Occasionally, there was a body with a bloody undershirt or trousers or socks, but the name was invariably cut out. The naked mutilated bodies, with their bloody fatal wounds, were nearly unrecognizable, and presented a scene of sickening, ghastly horror! There were perhaps, a half dozen spades and shovels, as many axes, a couple of picks, and a few hatchets in the whole command; with these and knives and tin cups we went over the field and gave the bodies, where they lay, a scant covering of mother earth and left them, in that vast wilderness, hundreds of miles from civilization, friends and homes, to the wolves!"

Trumpeter Giussepi Martini saw a heap of dead men in a deep gully between Custer and the river. Martini said that one of the first sergeants with whom some of the men had left their pay for safe keeping had about $500 in paper money torn up and scattered all over his body.  He also reported that one of Adjutant Cooke’s sideburn was scalped off, skin and all.

Seventh Cavalry scout George Herendeen added, "The heads of four white soldiers were found in the Sioux camp that had been severed from their trunks, but the bodies could not be found on the battlefield or in the village."

Lieutenant Charles Roe of the Second Cavalry, said, "we found in the Indian village a white man's head with a lariat tied to it, which had been dragged around the village until the head was pulled off the body."

Survivor Jacob Adams recalled, "troopers were lassooed from their horses and dragged to the center of the village, where they were tied to trees and burned to death that night within sight of their comrades of Benteen's division, who were helpless to rescue them. After the battle, John Ryan said, "we found what appeared to be human bones, and parts of blue uniforms, where the men had been tied to stakes and trees."

Of the five guidons carried by Custer's troops at the “Last Stand” only one was immediately recovered, concealed under the body of a dead trooper.  That trooper was Corporal John Foley, who was trying to escape on horseback.  Foley was pursued by Indians and shot himself in the head before he was overtaken. The recovered flag later became known as the Culbertson Guidon, after the member of the burial party who recovered it, Sergeant Ferdinand Culbertson.

The Culbertson Guidon was sold by Sotheby’s auction house to a private collector in 2010 for $2.2 million.

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined 

 

Custer’s Last Stand Re-examined